The keyword “cross” is trending currently, primarily due to the recent reopening of the Gaza border. The New York Times reported that the first vehicles crossed the Rafah border into Gaza, marking a significant development in the region. This news likely prompted a surge in searches as individuals seek to understand the implications of this event on humanitarian efforts and regional stability.
Additionally, the interest in “cross” may stem from the recent coverage of the cyclocross event, specifically the performances of athletes like Van der Poel and Brand, as highlighted by PezCycling News. The prominence of Dutch competitors in the event has garnered attention, with audiences interested in the athletes’ achievements and the sport itself.
The combination of these two disparate events—a geopolitical development in the Middle East and a major cycling competition—has led to a high volume of searches for the term “cross.” The term’s relevance in both contexts has likely contributed to its trending status with over 20,000 searches.
Watch the Moment
Internet Reacts
C
It’s more expensive and slower to travel by train than it is by car
E
It’s more expensive than flying most of the time. A month ago I looked at taking a train from Richmond to NYC and it was over $200 and 8 hours. I ended up flying… $90 and 49 minutes in the air.
V
A lot of the time it’s cheaper to drive and pay for cheap hotels like Motel 6 than to take the Amtrak. From AZ to Michigan it’s faster to drive. A friend once went AZ to Ohio and the arrival was delayed by more than 24 hours, so he had to get off and rent a car to get home and still arrived a whole day than the train did.
M
this is the amtrak reliability that america knows and loves!!!
P
In 1988 I was in a train that caught on fire in the mountains in Colorado. It was wild. It wasn’t quite coat weather where I was coming from in Nevada, so most of us didn’t have anything to stay warm as we were evacuated and had to stand outside in the snow for hours waiting for them to do repairs. Most exciting week of my life, honestly. But they had no way to help me when their issue meant my next connection would leave before I got there. I would have had to stay in the station for nearly 24 hours after standing out in the snow for about 8. So I had to pay to take a bus the rest of the way home, because they would not refund even a penny.
E
That is some deeply disturbing lack of customer service right there. #mostboringdystopia
J
Amtrak improvements are stymied at every turn. It’ll always be the worst choice so long as it’s deliberately designed to be the worst choice unfortunately.
F
It’s not Amtrak’s fault. By federal law passenger trains are supposed to get priority on the rails over freight. The freight companies don’t like that, so they make their trains longer than the siding and forces Amtrak to literally have to pull over and wait for these miles long behemoths to pass so they can resume on the rails.
W
This this this this this and, by the way **THIS**. Amtrak doesn’t own the rail network. CSX and BNSF own the vast majority of the tracks in America. They consider the primary job of the rail system to be hauling freight.
P
And it is the primary job of the rail system. Without that rail freight network we would be screwed. People can take planes and drive. Heavy freight has far fewer economic options. Trains take thousands of trucks off the road. Imagine them wanting to use their own rails for their own freight business.
J
That said, flights in that region are usually pretty cheap because they do have to compete with trains.
T
yep, trains can be fun, you get views you’ll never get by car. They can even be luxurious if you spend but its definitely not practical, fast or economical.
G
That’s largely because of how they are implemented here. They could be cheaper and faster. You can see it in some areas where they are used more often, obviously outside of the US, but even inside the US. There are areas around Chicago and the east coast where the train is very practical and cheap. I live in the midwest, so my experience is pretty limited, I have to drive hours to even get to a train station. But I have found that driving a few hours south and taking a train into Chicago is more practical and relaxing for me than driving into Chicago, and it takes about the same amount of time. My other experiences were in NY and DC, in both cases the metro was so much better than driving or taking a cab/uber etc.
C
Lol as someone who lives in NYC and goes home a few times a year to Boston, it is not faster, cheaper or more practical most of the time. A plane from NYC to Boston is $50 and takes 45 min. The trains are $100 one way and take 3 1/2 hours, and a lot of times you get stuck in train traffic. During the holiday season, it can be $250 one way. Driving takes the same amount of time. I use all 3 methods depending on my situation. The train is NEVER my faster, cheaper option.
N
And if you want to stop and enjoy the view…can’t do that,
R
The only place I saw people use interstate train travel on a daily basis was the NYC-Boston Acela line. I wish we had more high speed rail.
2
DC to NYC, as well, especially Philly to NYC.
I
But it’s so much more beautiful, and instead of swearing at other drivers, you just get to enjoy beautiful landscapes.
J
I get to see shitty run down towns, cant sleep with the horn blowing every 20 minutes, and the food literally disgusting. But hey, I can get to New Orleans 4x longer than flying, so there is that.
F
It’s not more beautiful, this country is gorgeous from the air.
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N
Amtrak tickets are always bonkers around the holidays and if you try to book last minute. My sister paid $300 for a last second NYC to Baltimore booking on Christmas Eve a few years ago, I’ve made that trip for like $40 before by booking way out in advance for non-peak travel season They also charge a ton on long distance tickets simply because they can. There is more demand for it than there are trains, especially for the sleeper service
F
I was looking since the end of September. I never saw it go under 600 for 1 ticket. Living in DC I can for sure go to Baltimore or New York for like $10-30
S
The Northeast corridor is high enough traffic where prices can actually be like that but multi-day train trips will always be more expensive
O
Booking in advance is the way to go and sometimes Amtrak is a good deal that way. Factor in not needing a hotel if the drive would be longer than one day, and factor in not needing a rental car if friends, fam, or Uber works to get you from the train, and Amtrak can be a lot cheaper.
P
Flying has always been cheaper than trains that is why they don’t have trains in a lot of the country anymore
M
Trains did not decline from prominence due to air travel. It was the rise of the interstate highway system that made travel between cities much faster and easier by car. Airline tickets were still very expensive until the deregulation of airlines until 1978. Before then airline routes and fairs were strictly dictated by the Federal government, which generally enforced high ticket prices.
T
It’s because the lines are owned by freight companies that without government pressure wouldn’t even consider allowing passenger trains to run on them. Laying new track is incredibly expensive, and the not great experiences with trains are why there’s not enough interest to gather funding for dedicated passenger rail lines. Bit of a Catch 22.
B
This is my experience exactly. I really want to take a long train trip but every time I go to book I’m SHOCKED at how much more expensive it is to travel by train than literally any other form of travel in the US; coar, bus, and flights are cheaper and faster than train travel in the US
N
Its not common nor is it a last option. Its typically an option people purposely seek out, either because they are train enthusiasts, they want to sightsee via train, just have a ton of time to kill and aren’t in a rush. If you’re on a budget, its cheaper and quicker to fly. Or even if Amtrak is technically cheaper, you are paying for it in your time. I’ve done it twice and am willing to take further trips in the future. r/Amtrak There are also a handful of scenic railways throughout the nation that are basically tourist attractions. EDIT: You are mostly getting answers from people who have never ridden Amtrak.
L
This. This is the one. There are some of us who intentionally do this, for various reasons. Some are train enthusiasts who think of it as a “land cruise.” Some are scared of flying. Some are Amish (if you want a near guarantee of meeting Amish people, ride the California Zephyr). Some just think of it as a good way to see the country.
A
Can confirm – saw Amish people on the California Zephyr. Also saw dolphins in the ocean from the viewing car somewhere around SLO!
I
I did it once as a young adult. It was an experience I’ll never forget. Met some interesting people, saw some really cool stuff, and slept like a baby with the sway of the cars. I’m glad I took the sleeper route
B
I like how Michael Palin put it (paraphrased): one of the best things about traveling by train in the US is that you meet the kind of people who *want* to travel by train.
D
My friend did NY to California on a train. He was scared to fly. Took like 3days with a 4/5hr layover in Chicago. He said he loved it. Liked talking with people on the train, seeing the wilderness and the lack of people in vast swaths of the US. He’s originally from Brooklyn. Got over his fear and took a flight back to NY, first time flying. Said he’d never take a train again. Flying was just too convenient compared to the train.
F
*You are mostly getting answers from people who have never ridden Amtrak.* Because few of us want to spend twice as much money for a trip that takes three times longer and where the stops are rarely points of actual interest. I consider myself a train enthusiast (I have drive four or five hours to watch the Big Boy steam by) but every time I start to book an AMTRAK trip, I decide I’d rather make an extra mortgage payment than spend that money on a four-day trip from the Midwest to the coast stopping at… Albuquerque and Kingman? Yeah, no.
S
People who have flight phobias also ride Amtrak. I spent 4 days across the hall from a Vietnam vet with PTSD. Was missing a leg. He said he just can’t stand flying anymore. We spent a lot of time chatting. Was a really nice guy. We’d grab each other to go eat in the dining car. I said my back was killing me. He gave me a small morphine pill. That also improved the ride.
T
The “last option” would either be the Greyhound Bus or hitchhiking.
W
I am fortunate enough to live along the Amtrak Acela corridor. Whenever I visit Philly or NYC or Boston, it’s on Amtrak (driving + tolls + parking is usually more expensive!). Outside of this corridor (DC to Boston, mostly), driving is the way to go up to a certain distance, then it’s cheaper to fly (depending on how many people you have, etc). But outside of this corridor, I don’t think most people even have access to Amtrak. Frankly, it blows my mind that there’s not a high speed commuter rail along the west coast, given how many people live there.
S
Very uncommon. It’s incredibly expensive, very rundown, and very sparse.
S
Very very time consuming.
S
That’s the major issue. It takes 3-4 days to go coast to coast by train in the US vs 6-7 hours by plane. The United States in very, very big.
R
This is the correct answer. Flying to what people do if they aren’t driving. You can do West Coast to East Coast in under 5 hours with a good head wind. And it’s not hard to find plane tickets that are actually cheaper than a train. Trains are very inconvenient for anyone not in the northeast or Chicago.
O
Going anywhere in the US via AMTRAK from Detroit means first going to Chicago. A four-plus hour ride one way. My in-laws live in Georgia and one time Hub and I priced the AMTRAK vs. flying there to visit (Hub loves trains). The train ride took about 42 hours and the price for two tickets was $800+, whereas we could get plane tix for less than half that price and it only took about two hours.
V
Not to mention Detroit to (I’m assuming) Atlanta is hub to hub for Delta, which means you’re going to get the nicest planes and everything.
A
It’s sad too, the train really shows how beautiful the country is. It’s also fun to watch how different peoples houses can be. They may dress up the front of their house but their back yards can show a totally different reality, from junkyards, minigolf, racetracks, and just outright gross shit. Meanwhile their front yard tries to make it look like a royal compound.
S
Right. If it’s going to take me 5-7 days to get from Boston to Seattle, I’d rather just have my car.
C
Two out of three. Amtrak ain’t glittering with luxury but it’s far from ‘very rundown.’ Took a seven-hour trip last month (well, two, considering the return ride) and coach was quite comfy. Im 6-5 and had more legroom than I could use. We liked it so much, we booked a room for an overnight trip to Chicago this summer.
H
I was surprised to learn that I can’t take the train from SF to Knoxville. The train just doesn’t go anywhere near Knoxville
P
Smart train. It doesn’t want to be anywhere near the University of Tennessee, a sentiment shared by many.
Additional Sources:
The New York Times – Video: First Vehicles Cross Reopened Gaza Border
PezCycling News – EUROTRASH: Van der Poel and Brand Lead Dutch Dominance at ‘Cross Worlds
